Sinner, Savior, Saint of Stilwater
by Synnifex
Summary: The city of Stilwater is a perfect haven of vice and crime; home to gangsters, businessmen, villains, psychopaths…and the Boss. A place where few wizards would thrive – yet destiny must have a sense of humor, for where else would it strand Harry Potter, one-time hero to Wizarding Britain?
1. Preface

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 **This story has been rated for Brutal Violence, Implied Horrors, Character Death, Drug Use, Inappropriate Language, Crude Humor and Atrocious Alliterations.**

 **All characters, concepts, and locations made use of herein are the property of their respective owners.**

 **I do not profit from this work - it is a piece of diversionary fiction, meant solely to entertain.**

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I started what would become this story as an exercise in writing different perspectives, sometime during editing passes on my first HP/SR short. Initially, it was merely a mirrored-concept, in which Harry Potter wound up in the simulation, and helped punch Zinyak in the face. However, the image of a Harry adrift in the peculiar city of Stilwater wouldn't leave me alone, and I soon adapted to writing that, just to satisfy my curiosity as to what he would get up to.

Unlike my previous narrative, which was always envisioned as a one-shot (albeit rife with sequel potential) this story is open-ended, and I have no definite stopping point in mind. I suppose I shall stick with it as long as the muse has some kick left, and I hope those of you in this admittedly niche crossover fandom enjoy whatever I manage to produce. I am, unfortunately, not a fast writer.

The preface will be kept up-to-date with content warnings, though it should be taken as given that any interaction with the Third Street Saints is likely to stretch, if not simply overrun, the boundaries of good taste. No further advisory shall be forthcoming – you should be able to guess what you're getting into. _Pride and Prejudice_ this isn't.

Our story begins in fall of 1998, over one year after the final battle in Deathly Hollows. Given the Saints Row timeline is an inconsistent mess, I have recodified it to suit my purposes, with the Boss awakening at summer's end. She has been at work rebuilding the Saints for some months, and the plot of SR2 is about half-elapsed. I have also taken liberties with geography, and what Pottermore considers magic around the globe. Readers may consider the original HP books and their presentation of European magic as canon, but safely ignore any subsequently released 'facts'…at least until I run into the inevitable unintentional fallacy that drives me into a ret-conning coma.

Potential narrative speed-bumps aside, it has been an education and a pleasure to stuff these two disparate worlds into a beaker and watch them react to one another. It has definitely tickled the mad-science portion of my world-building brain, and I hope the result is at least mildly entertaining to you lovely readers as well.

Without further ado, I present the first episode of 'Sinner, Savior, Saint of Stilwater' – in which the Boss dines out, talks to her lieutenants, and goes apartment hunting.

Have fun! - _Synnifex_

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	2. Boss I: Eminence and Emerald

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I've got a history of poor decision making when I'm angry…but there's no real excuse for the depths I'm currently plumbing. Going up against someone with extensive formal training in swordplay, when this is the first time I've touched one? Abandoning my trusty guns for style? All to twist the proverbial knife (literal sword) of revenge a bit deeper than I could have otherwise?

Irredeemable. Fucking. Stupidity.

 _I should'a just torched the building and shot whoever tried to escape the inferno._

The only reason I'm still alive is luck, and the fact that my opponent Jyunichi's almost as stupid as I am. At least my brain's starting to work again, even through the rage that got me storming in here in the first place.

 _This murdering bastard thinks he's a goddamn samurai. Circling, posing, trying to finish me with one strike. He'd kill anyone trying to match that style, probably make it look effortless._

'Honorable combat' from a gang lieutenant who murders bound prisoners. What a fucking joke.

 _Too bad for him this girl doesn't fight fair._

I may not know how to use a sword very well, but I'm a fast learner, and I _do_ know how to dodge.

The first time he missed was almost comical.

I'd just cut the legs out from under one of his peons, managed to graze another in the guts – nasty way to die, that is, painful and slow – and while I'd been grappling with a third he'd come in with a quick one-two combination from each of his blades, meant to put some irreparable holes in my lungs and liver. I simply dove between the knees of the woman I'd been locking blades with – she could keep my sword – and Jyunichi was left in the awkward position of mortally wounding one of his own underlings.

A good rule of combat – don't get so attached to a weapon you have to choose between it and your life. The Ronin all seem to have missed that memo, 'cause the way that fucker came at me, he'd been expecting me to stay in some kinda noble blade struggle with Ms. Unnamed-Minion-Number-Four, just to retain a sword I'd stolen in the first place.

 _Idiots._

One sword's as good as another, and there were plenty to go around at that point. I grabbed the one Holding-His-Guts had abandoned and went back to guard position, flicking it down to open up Legless's throat, since the sobs were getting annoying.

A bit of cat and mouse later and here we are: I've cut Jyunichi pretty deeply a few times, and he's barely managed to wing me - all because he's trying to fight formal and I cheat. Eight more peons have bit the mat, and none of them are getting back up again, though several are still trying. Most of them were worse with swords than I am - not that I have any interest in turning samurai after this.

 _My pride can suck a fat one next time vengeance is on order. I'll be sticking to guns._

Jyunichi comes at me again, and again I retreat, kicking a stool in front of him to slow his progress. Out of the corner of my eye I see yet another quartet of sword-wielding morons burst in through the front door, not a gun in sight. I may be stupid, but I am certainly not the biggest idiot here. Sixteen (sixteen!) of his gang have made the same mistake I did. Too bad they'd almost certainly get me in the back if I tried to break for the shotgun in my car's trunk.

 _Ah well, let the dance continue._

Jyunichi has backed out of range again, his left leg dragging, blood from his thigh spotting the bamboo floor. My last flailing attack must have bit deeper than I thought. I grin, despite how heavy I'm breathing.

The underlings are trying for encirclement, but I keep my back to the bar as I glide away from them sideways, keeping all four in front of me.

The closest one, a muscular blonde, attacks and I lean away from it – he wasn't even close. Another is right on his heels – and wasn't expecting me to re-direct her heavy swing, too bad for her. She staggers and then my new sword is sliding right up under her jaw and skewing the brain, killing her instantly. Fifteen and Sixteen come at me as I extract the blade, but I leap up and roll away along the bar itself, their katanas thudding into the wood behind me.

Blond Dude who attacked me first is looking at Jyunichi out of the corner of his eye, probably for orders or reassurance that the boss-man is still with them, so I bull rush him and punch for the nose with a fist full of hilt before he can get his guard up. He staggers, and I plant my blade just below his breastbone before stealing a new weapon from his loosening grip and turning to the others.

Chief Bastard is coming around the other side bar, flanking me, and the last two advance to complete the pincer, far more coordinated than their predecessors.

 _Also known as their pre-deceased_.

I am giggling in my mind.

The next few seconds are a confused tangle of blades and body-blows, but when it's over, I've got two swords, Fifteen is blind and bleeding out through the groin, Sixteen needs a new pair of kidneys, and Jyunichi got me in the calf somehow.

I test my weight on the wounded leg and it hurts - a LOT – but it'll hold, at least long enough for me to finish this fight.

Down to me and Jyunichi once more. Four swords, blood drawn on both sides, no quarter.

 _Fuck, I'm falling into the trap again. Trying to beat him on his own turf, by his own rules. But this little shit killed Aisha. He doesn't deserve honor. He just needs to die._

As he winds up for another attack designed to take my head off, I lunge forward, throwing the blade in my right hand at him as hard as I can.

He deflects it – barely – but it's taken one of his own swords out of the equation for a moment, and while the other scores my chin like a branding iron before I'm past it, my real attack was a knee to his stomach. I've got a lot of momentum in my favor, and even as he doubles over we're both going down, myself on top. Abandoning my other sword completely, I grab each of his wrists in my hands and pin Jyunichi as we hit.

Landing robs him of breath, and I add a head-butt that breaks his nose and leaves him momentarily dazed. That brief opening is all I need to draw my butterfly and stab him in the neck, once, twice, repeatedly, continuing even as the blood gushes die down to dribbles and he goes completely limp. I stop when I realize I'm screaming Aisha's name and he's been motionless for some time.

 _Got you fucker. I got you._

I half expect to be stabbed or shot at any moment, but the restaurant remains eerily quiet. I guess I killed all his backup.

Standing takes a lot out of me, and pain starts pushing through the combat-high. My leg hurts horribly, but isn't bleeding much, so should be fine. On the other hand, my jaw is dripping steadily, and it _burns._ I'd probably better drop by a clinic and get stitched, the cut feels like it went all the way to bone. Once it heals I'll have a new scar from the center of my lower lip to the corner of my chin.

 _One more for the collection._

I briefly consider taking Jyunichi's swords, but trophies never really appealed to me, and one of them killed a dear friend of mine. Retrieving both, I stick them as deeply as I can in a nearby wooden column and lever until they snap. My trusty knife I clean on my pants before it goes back in its pocket.

My head's still a far way from clear, and Aisha's only half-avenged, but it'll have to do for now.

 _Time to leave, and sleep off these aches like a bad hangover._

I start heading for the stairs before an innocent little plate catches my eye.

 _Wait – is that untouched sushi? And do I spy a Crunchy Ebi roll!?_

My hand swoops down and nabs the taunting morsel, before bringing the delicacy to my mouth. I haven't had these in _ages_. It contributes a sweet (and slightly spicy) accent to my victory as I depart.

 _Delicious._

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Stopping by the hospital to visit Johnny the next day, I'm in a restrained outfit in order to not to call unwanted attention. Last thing we need is for one of the other gangs to figure out where Gat is before he can shoot back. I've been very blunt explaining to the staff what'll happen if they sell us out, and I doubt they'll talk, but there are only so many hospitals in Stilwater in the first place. Put that together with street gossip, and nothing can stay secret very long. As long as my best friend recovers enough to leave before that dam breaks, I don't care.

I dismiss my Saint on duty outside his room, telling her to go get some lunch, and start filling Johnny in on my encounter with the Ronin's now-deceased hitman.

"So the bastard's dead?" Gat breaks in, after I've finished recounting my tip-off, going to the restaurant, and carving pretty patterns on wannabe samurai with their own katanas.

"I cut him up myself. Not as slow as I would've liked, but it wasn't clean."

 _I made sure of that._

"…Good." Gat's hands flex as he glares past the ceiling. "But Akuji…"

We lock gazes and I smile thinly at him, all we need to say passing in that look. He knows I'm not going to deprive him of his own revenge, and I know he appreciates my saving the bigger fish for him. We sit quietly for long moments.

I hate seeing Johnny laid up like this - he deserves to be out on the street raining fire and destruction down on the Ronin. I was rattled the last time he was hurt, and this…is much worse. He almost died, even if he won't admit it, and…I probably couldn't've handled that.

"How you doin'?" I say abruptly, needing his own assurance he's healing.

"She's dead, you really gotta ask?" The flare of rage I see in Johnny's eyes cuts to my core. I hadn't even been considering that side of things, and hearing how callous my question sounds in a different context is agonizing.

 _Fucking fuck! Apologize you idiot!_

"I- no, I- I meant…" _She- it- I-_

Giving up on speech, I gesture to the wound in his side. His anger cools as Johnny realizes what I'd intended.

"Oh…hurts like a bitch, but I'll live."

I can't think of anything else to say, but I feel the drop back onto our undefined wavelength, and know we're both now thinking about Aisha. She was a very good friend to me, and for Johnny…well, she was his angel. Never seen him as happy as when he was with her.

 _Can't imagine how much her loss hurts him._

I don't think I've allowed myself to feel it properly yet; the past few days have mostly been numbness in the wake of Aisha and Carlos's deaths.

Finally he breaks the silence by asking me what my plan is.

"Harass the Brotherhood and the Samedi to keep them off-balance while we utterly crush the Ronin. Buy some popcorn to watch you take Shogo apart. Then vengeance for Carlos. After that…we'll figure it out. Get the Saints back on top of Stilwater, I guess."

 _Same plan it's always been, only modified for revenge._

"Fuckin' A," he grunts.

I shrug, there's no point in thinking too far ahead.

"I've got a few Saints watching over the house. No one's going in there until you…can take care of things."

Johnny's grateful, I can see, but at the same time we're verging too close to what neither of us want to talk about. He pushes past his discomfort, asking the obvious question:

"Funeral?"

I've taken care of everything I can: it wouldn't have been right to trust preparations to someone else.

 _This is for Gat and I to do._

"We're waiting for you. How long 'till you're back?"

"The doc said I should be up and murderin' in a couple days…well, ya know, he didn't say murderin', but you get the idea."

That pulls a smirk from me, and for the barest moment we're back to our old selves – two outlaws, not a care, ready to raise some hell. Then the overhead lights die with a fizzling whine. I can think of only one reason why the hospital would suddenly be losing power.

 _We're about to have company._

"Time to leave?" I ask Johnny, pulling a sawn-off from the bouquet I'd brought in, and retrieving my pistols from the straps beneath my sweater.

"Fuck yeah," he agrees.

I help him onto a gurney from his bed, becoming aware of approaching footsteps in the hallway. Up come my guns and I grin ferally. Whoever's here to kill Gat is about to have a very bad day. I don't care how many there are.

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It must be raining up on street level, because the ceiling is dripping again. Well…perhaps 'dripping' isn't a strong enough word.

 _Streaming, more like._ _Damn has this fall been wet._

I shift a trashcan another foot the right, and wonder how much it'd cost to find some no-questions-asked workmen to fix our hideout's roof.

 _A pole won't be much good if it's too wet to cling to._

My phone throws a fit and it takes me several moments to remember which button Pierce told me to press.

" _Hey Boss, it's Shaundi."_

 _Shaundi, my pretty perky party girl._ Maybe she's slept with a decent contractor? Odds are in favor of it.

"What's new Shaundi? You up to anything?"

" _Well…yeah, actually, I'm setting up for a rave on campus tonight, gonna sell off some of the Loa Dust we jacked, but that's not why I called you."_

"It's not?" _Damn._

Still, a party might be a good way to unwind. Sitting around brooding about what I'm going to do to Maero when I catch him isn't very productive.

" _No. It is about the Sons of Samedi though. One of the party's organizers is my ex, Luke – he's a tattoo artist at Rusty's Needle – and yesterday he overheard two Sons talking about a new shipment they'd received this week."_

Now I was pissed. If the Sons of Samedi were still running their product without us knowing after all the Saints had done, taking them down might be harder than I'd thought.

"I thought we were watching their drug routes, how'd we miss this?"

" _We missed it because the cargo didn't arrive on one of their boats, came from Europe instead of the Caribbean, and delivery was performed by a third party,"_ Shaundi's calm reply helps to ease my irritation. _"Honestly, Boss, it might not be drugs at all. Luke said they referred to the cargo as 'rowdy,' so it's probably either animals or people."_

Well, that puts a spin on things. _Crazy voodoo-looking motherfuckers that might be up to actual voodoo? Or possibly human trafficking?_ I feel a pang of nostalgia for the days when Stilwater's gangsters stuck to drive-bys and spray paint.

"Anything else you can tell me?"

" _All I know is that the delivery truck was one of the 'Hightail Moving' company's. You'd have to check their records or talk to a supervisor to learn more."_

"Thanks, Shaundi, I'll look into it."

A chance to stick it to the Sons is far better than anything I'd planned for the day. Guess I'm breaking into an office.

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Another green-capped thug bursts around the doorway, firing wildly, and I drop him with a shotgun blast to the face. I've been clearing out the apartment I'd located from the bottom up, and not found anything of interest yet, so whatever the Sons have hidden away has to be on this last floor. Going in without backup probably wasn't the best idea, but I've been feeling restless, and so far I'm ten for ten vs. enemy goons.

The chatter of a K6 splits the air as someone hoses the corridor Green-Beret-Wannabe emerged from, obviously hoping to catch me charging in. No dice for you, friend, your luck's run out. I pull the ignition tape off the last of the crude grenades I'm carrying and hock it around the corner by bouncing it off the opposite wall.

 _Pause, flash, bang, panicked yelling – music to my ears._

I lean out and drop a blinded woman with two well-placed slugs. That's the last of my ammo for the boomstick gone, but I've still got pistols, and she won't be needing that assault rifle anymore. Hefting the heavier gun, I take stock of the hallway.

Five doors to the left and several windows to the right, but the corridor itself is empty of Samedi. I may have just cleared all my opposition out, unless someone's hiding in the rooms. I kick the first door open and dodge to the side.

No shots or noise greet me, so I peer in with caution.

Well, that was anti-climactic – virtually empty. A few fridges, a moth-eaten couch, a card table, the traditional stained carpets. An abandoned lunch is already gathering flies. Shrugging, I move to the next door and repeat the process.

This one is substantially different and I shiver.

Plastic over the entire floor, the walls, no furniture besides a narrow table, and extra lights. Blood's pooled under the table, and there are a couple of beer coolers lined up on one wall. A metal chest sits in one corner. Ratchet straps are lying coiled on the table, also blood-stained. An unpleasant premonition is nudging at my mind as I move to the third door down the hallway. Shaking off distraction, I boot the door open, rifle ready to greet anyone inside.

No occupants – aside from a large number of black trash bags piled on more bloody plastic. I immediately recognize the smell of rotting meat. I don't want look in them. I don't need to look in them. I can clearly see the outline of a hand here, a foot there. Whole people don't bend that way.

Grimly, I return to the first rooms and open the fridges. Two of them are packed with…parts, some of them rather small. I snarl wordlessly. There's low – and then there's this.

Two doors left, and my fury almost makes me miss the subtle noises coming from behind it as I approach. At the last moment, instinct kicks me to the floor just before gunfire fills the air above me with splinters.

If I had remained standing, that entire clip would've gone into my chest, but, lucky bitch that I am; I get off with only a bruised elbow. Punching the door open I return fire, dimly aware of high pitched screaming from multiple voices in my ears as another gang member's brains turn into chunky salsa. I roll away as the weapon clicks empty, and hear someone rushing me, their shotgun tearing a fist-sized hole from the wall by my head.

Just as this second opponent clears the doorway, I stick the rifle between his legs and twist, springing to my feet as he loses his. A solid punch to the man's solar plexus staggers his recovery nicely, and I follow it up by striking for his throat with my open palm as he sways to his feet. He gags and wheezes, loosening his grip just enough for me to tear his weapon away completely before I kick him through the rotting wood of the window frame across the hallway. I register brief flash of widening eyes before he inverts over the sill and plummets away, not even able to scream. We're ten stories up, so there's a poignant silence before the distant, satisfying _smack_ of his death.

I'd already wheeled to cover the door with my liberated firearm, but no more attacks are forthcoming. Carefully entering the room, I find eleven children of mixed nationalities and ages, all handcuffed to rings in the wall. The oldest probably isn't more than thirteen, the youngest looks about nine. They all stare at me, still vocalizing their terror, and I admit I'm probably not the most comforting sight in the world. Still a Saint's better than a Son, at least at this juncture.

For a moment I stand at a loss: calming children has never exactly been my forte, and it doesn't help that most of them continue screaming.

Loudly.

 _And I have a headache._

"Shut UP!"

So much for tactful.

 _Worked though._

I shake my head in despair - if they were afraid before, now they're petrified. Shit, how on earth can I salvage this?

"How many of you understand English?" I say out loud.

 _That's right, normal voice girl, normal voice._

About half of them nod or make affirmative gestures. Good enough.

"I am not one of these fu- people right here-" I gesture to the green-shirted corpse missing most of its head lying in the center of the room, "-that want your organs. I'm going to get you free, and take you somewhere safe. Then you never have to see me again. You just need to stay calm and stay quiet."

 _Okay, my diplomacy definitely needs work._

A few more nods though, with what might even be understanding. I rub my face with a free hand. What an eventful outing this has become. I start patting down the corpse for keys, not really expecting to find any. Knowing my luck, they're probably on the guy I pushed out the window.

One of the oldest girls, Korean from the look of her, with a split lip and a bandage over one eye, speaks up.

"Lady? They have…tools, in other room."

 _That would speed this along. Glad at least one of the brats is sensible._

I thank her and return to the plastic chamber again, finding a bevy of tarnished power tools in the chest. And a bolt cutter, whose other possible applications I try not to think about. Hurrying back to the children's room, I start breaking handcuffs. Freeing One-Eyed Girl first turns out to be a good move, she seems to have their trust, and they flock to her instinctively. She tells me her name is Yoon Se-Bin, and I tell her I'm the leader of the gang taking over Stilwater. Se-Bin doesn't bat an eye, leading me to think she's seen some shit. Honestly, I'm reminded of myself more than a little.

Once they're all free, I remember there's one last room to check. I give Se-Bin one of my pistols after extracting a promise that she won't shoot me with it, and tell her to look after the others. The kid holds it too confidently for this to be her first time, so good on her; she just might survive to adulthood.

The last door turns out to be locked, an obstacle I remedy with a sharp blow from the butt of my new shotgun.

No welcoming committee and I can finally breathe easy for a moment, though this room isn't a pretty sight either. Seems it was where they were keeping the adults, but most of the chains are empty now. Three sets are still occupied - by pale corpses, strangely without marks on them. I would've thought the Samedi would harvest their organs as well. Then again, who knows with fuckers that crazy?

The fourth occupant is alive though, despite appearances. He's barely out of adolescence himself, wearing clothes that are well on their way to becoming rags, and there's an I-V crudely hooked into his left arm. Whatever they're pumping him full of isn't for his health: what I decipher of the label indicates some potent sedatives. The kid groans as I touch his shoulder and his eyelids flutter. Must be a marginally tough bastard to remain even semi-conscious under this much juice.

He doesn't seem to be aware of me, or anything else really, and I'm not looking forward to dragging a dead weight down ten flights of stairs. I carefully remove the needle from his vein, and tear a strip off his shirt to bind the wound. Then it's bolt-cutter time, and with the support of the handcuffs gone he slumps to the floor, twitching as he tries to fight the cocktail still inside him.

I really don't have time for this. I should just leave him, for all I know he's one of those high society pricks I'd run down on the sidewalk without a second thought. Still, I basically committed to rescuing everyone I here after I saw the fridges. Which means there's a bigger problem: even _I_ wouldn't be able to get a group of eleven traumatized kids and one stoned teenager to safety – whatever and wherever that is in this city – though the streets on my own. I'll need backup.

Half a minute is spent muttering unproductively under my breath as I try to come up with a plan.

Then inspiration strikes, and I grin.

 _So, Pierce, complaining about not being involved enough? Your prayers have been answered yet again. Prepare to be involved on a big, fat platter._

Besides, this is a good chance to see how ingenious he can be. Most of my requests have been too…reasonable, of late.

I pull my mobile and call him up, almost dialing Shaundi instead (twice - fucking piece of shit phone). He answers after the first ring.

" _Hey Boss! What can I do for you?"_

 _So eager, so naïve. Oh my innocent lieutenant, you have much to learn. When people used that tone with Julius he'd have them in the shit for weeks just on principle._

"Pierce," I purr, unable to mask the glee in my voice at the bomb I'm about to hit him with, "as it turns out, I _do_ need your help with something. Right now."

" _Uh…okay Boss,"_ he says, far more hesitant this time, and I can barely restrain a cackle. _Too late, boyo._

He takes a breath, crackly over the phone line.

" _What do you need?"_

"Boost something that can seat at least thirteen and come meet me." I give him the address of the block. "Backup and ammo too, I'm almost dry. We're doing some escorting."

"Right Boss," his voice is laced with confusion, but I hang up before he can ask for more details. Samedi reinforcements will be here soon if they aren't already, and I need to prepare to hold them off. Turning my attention back to Woozy Boy, I kick his leg with my boot.

"C'mon, wake up sleeping beauty, I haven't got all day here."

The kid _is_ recovering his senses, but slowly. His head rolls slowly up, and, blinking, he tries to focus on my face-

 _Whoa…your eyes sure are a pretty shade of green…very intense, almost malachite._

"Wha…Who?" he gasps.

"I lead the 3rd Street Saints. They call me Boss," I reply, trying not to crowd him as he gropes at the wall for support. The drugs are definitely still in effect, and I wince in sympathy, remembering my hospitality at the hands of the General a fortnight ago.

"I'm Harry," he says in a tired voice. My eyes flick to his disheveled head, and I can't help but snort.

 _How apt._

"Hi, I guess. Can you walk, Harry? We need to get the fuck out of here, and I'd prefer not to drag you."

He isn't looking thrilled by the idea of standing up, but begins levering himself towards it.

"I…can try."

Getting home with this many liabilities in tow is going to be interesting.

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 **Next time: Harry stands up, descends some stairs, and participates in tourism.**


	3. Harry I: The Pursuit of Cognizance

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This was, Harry Potter decided as rational thought trickled back to him, less like emerging from sleep than moving from one bad dream directly into another. For an indeterminate time, he had been floating in a muddled haze, unable to connect one moment to the next, while surreal horrors assaulted his senses. Now, he clearly and definitely had no idea where he was, and for several moments was carried through void on a wave of permeating pain and nausea. Finally, his eyes remembered to open and he registered his surroundings, but they did not offer much comfort.

Abstractly considered, there must be _some_ reason to be in a dilapidated and poorly-lit room, head spinning like a Sneakoscope, digestion in revolt, and with a floating boot kicking his shin, but explanations remained maliciously distant. What little mental faculty Harry had at his disposal was not optimistic about finding a good justification for this predicament, and, disconcertingly, he could not pull up any memories to provide context. Thought was unpleasantly slow, struggling against the same force that kept the world bending before his eyes, making him unsure about which direction gravity should be applied, and enforcing an artificial tranquility when he wanted to be alarmed.

Harry _was_ sure that he hurt a great deal. That remained a steady and persistent counter-argument to the notion that he was actually asleep. Harry could not remember ever truly hurting in his dreams, aside from the occasional vision courtesy of the late Voldemort.

But at present his wrists were aggravatingly chafed and sore, angular bruises encircling them - likely the result of restraints. There was an aching light-headedness that spoke of blood loss (a familiar old friend), along with sharp throbbing where his arm was wrapped in a dirty rag. He had the dim impression of a needle at the end of a tube previously being embedded there. All of his muscles were drawn and stiff, and as Harry tried to stir, he became aware of innumerable bruises covering his body.

An effort of concentration allowed the young wizard to finally recognize that a person was standing before him, meaning the intrusive boot had not moved of its own accord after all. Words which sounded like they were coming alternately from a very small mouse and a very large bear drifted past, at first escaping comprehension, but finally Harry gathered that this person wanted him to wake up. Harry thought that waking up was a very good idea, and wondered when it would start.

Fleeting images, possibly connected to his current state, drifted through his mind like spectral ships. There was an impression of a circular room, another of a shadowy figure with cruel face, a sense of prolonged anguish, waves lit by moonlight – all seemed important, but refused to give any further account of themselves. Harry tried to sort them, and couldn't, tried to remember the last few weeks - and couldn't, tried to find any hint in his indistinct surroundings that would spark the light of comprehension…and couldn't.

Giving up on memory as a futile exercise for the moment, Harry directed his attention to the person opposite him. Despite the continual distortions plaguing his eyes, his examination gathered a significant purple expanse above the grey boots, flesh with unreadable letters on it, more purple, and finally a face that kept shifting like runny omelet. The face was framed by long messy hair accented with streaks of heliotrope – perhaps the result of an experiment with potions, if this person were a magic-user. For the first time, Harry thought to wonder if he was a prisoner of magicals or not. At present, there was no way to be sure.

He blinked, staring wonderingly up into the shadowed eyes, but this apparition did not go away. What was it waiting for?

"Vashee glazza uvir any dovell no ottenock zelennogo," the other murmured as it regarded him, sounding as if it were speaking underwater.

 _Ah - aliens_ , part of Harry's brain offered, as if such would be a rational occurance that cleared up all mysteries. Another mental voice stepped in and began enumerating everything wrong with that explanation, while a third took up the case of whether the person's ever-changing features indicated that they were a metamorphmagus. Meanwhile, the remaining majority decided that it was probably worthwhile to risk some questions.

"Wha-" Harry managed, but his parched mouth was not fully cooperating with him.

He licked his lips and tried again, carefully.

"Who?"

It was a start.

"I lead the 3rd Street Saints. They call me boss," the other said, this time in English. Though the voice now seemed female, her words remained oddly distorted.

Harry did not consider that to be a particularly illuminating answer, but the (presumed) woman had spoken as though it meant something. Perhaps, like his current circumstances, the statement would make more sense later.

"I'm Harry," he stated, leaving the 'Potter' to whimper in obscurity along with his other titles. There was a small (very small) chance that this witch (if she was one, whoever she was), didn't recognize him. He was even beginning to hope that she was not intending to keep him prisoner here. So didn't sound like the sort of person who held people against their will, but then again, impressions could be deceiving.

However, it seemed luck was with him, though his relief vanished as soon as she suggested walking. While not being a captive was a welcome discovery, walking sounded very…ambitious to Harry. Still, it would have to happen sooner or later. At least enough to escape wherever here was…regroup, figure out what had happened…and what to do.

One thing at a time. Standing would have to come first.

Harry braced himself against the wall, and slowly went from sitting listing leftwards to standing straight-backed…then tottered rapidly over to the right as his stomach declared all-out war against him. Once he had finished emptying his guts onto the carpet, Harry felt remarkably better, though still rather weak and inclined to tremble in the extremities.

"Bad trip," the woman commented, and Harry groaned in what could be taken for agreement.

"Do you know why they had you here?" she asked.

The only clear memory he could dredge up in response was a rich and malevolent voice speaking from what seemed to be a long distance away.

' _Keep this one alive, his blood is strong with magic.'_

"They wanted a wizard's blood," he replied, trying to breathe shallowly through the bitter taste in his mouth. "Not sure why."

"…Riiight" said the woman after a pause. "I don't want to know. Let's just be gone before they're back. Creepy-ass voodoo motherfuckers," she added under her breath.

Harry, who had caught this, giggled despite not fully comprehending. His mind had started latching onto the strangest things as sources of amusement. Like the way a certain carpet stain looked just like a dancing Dobby. He giggled once more, then coughed, and refocused his thoughts. Thinking clearly was taking far more effort than it should have.

On Harry's second attempt to reach a standing position he remained there, though the way the floor persisted in undulating under him was hardly ideal. Still, with caution, and hands outstretched to catch himself, he succeed in walking. Following the woman out into a hallway just as filthy as the room he'd left, Harry waited by a broken window and took several deep breaths of significantly fresher air as his companion turned into a different room.

Looking out the window, Harry could distinguish blurry clusters of what were likely apartment blocks, bordering a river, and a skyline that sadly provoked no recognition. The buildings across the water gleamed like glass and metal under the occasional rays of light piercing the cloudy sky, so Harry hazarded a guess that he was not in any of the older cities of Europe. Beyond that, he could only speculate. This could be Britain, Australia, the States, or even somewhere in South America or Africa for all he knew. Just because the first person he'd met spoke English didn't mean he was in an English-speaking country. But again, that was a problem to be addressed later. For now, Harry just wanted a safe corner where he could lie down in until his head stopped spinning, preferably a long way from wherever he currently was.

Murmuring voices intruded on his thoughts.

"…going to get out of here, alright?" That was the woman he had met earlier talking, Harry was almost certain. His ears seemed to be recovering – she had sounded nearly human this time.

Moments later the speaker reappeared, leading a motley collection of children and young teens, most of them gaunt, shivering, and fearful-eyed. They clustered around a girl of eastern ancestry with gauze across her face who was carrying a handgun. Part of Harry's brain decided to wager on his being in an American city. He'd already seen more firearms in the past five minutes than in his entire life previously, and that was based off of only two people.

"I'll lead," declared the woman. "Harry, you stick by me, but get out of the way if we meet anyone, Se-Bin," she addressed the girl, "cover me if we run into trouble. Don't shoot anyone wearing purple, they're my crew. It's open season on green. Kids, if shooting starts, you get out of sight and keep your heads down until it stops. Clear?"

There was a whimper of affirmation from some of them and Harry nodded quietly.

"Let's move," said their strange rescuer.

Walking took a lot of concentration, and it was not until he had passed the third dead body that Harry's mind registered their presence.

While his gut did clench slightly at the pervasive blood and dismemberment, the emotional horror he usually felt at confronting death was muddied by the floating, disconnected sensation that continued to plague him. All Harry could muster was an odd feeling of bemusement as he slowly connected dots.

He, and the children following him, had been freed. They had needed to be freed because they had been held captive, and captives needed guards. These had been the guards, and had been killed. The only one who could have killed them was the purple woman.

Harry's impaired mind wasn't up to untangling the emotions besides relief present at that conclusion, so he shelved his thoughts for later. None of dead people on the floor were familiar to him, and none of them looked like wizards – or at least not the European style of spellcasters he was familiar with. He wondered if she'd killed all of them, since there was-

 _The memory of a man, dressed in the same chromatic green with a yellow and red-accented matching cap, looking down at him with cold interest, then turning and speaking – in the terrible purr from his previous recollection – to a figure in grey. Money changed hands. And then the green man held something up to Harry's face and consciousness faded._

Despite himself, Harry hoped the central figure of that recollection was deceased. Something within him felt a remarkable abhorrence at the notion of meeting the other again.

The group reached a flight of stairs, and Harry began the careful process of descending them, one step behind the purple-clad woman. He could not recall ever being more grateful to the existence of handrails. Once it became clear that he could manage the decent, he resumed his musings.

He had been bought.

That was why he had been held prisoner. But for what-

' _This will do nicely.'_

Harry forcefully pushed away a new recollection before it could cohere. Something had happened, something involving the green man with the panther's voice and malevolent eyes, and it had been far more terrible than the mere sight of death. Instinct screamed to Harry the he should not want to remember, and he heeded that impulse. Discovery could wait until he had a chance to rest and regain his equilibrium. For now, the young wizard was grateful at just how easy it was to lose a thought amid the vapors clouding his consciousness.

Arriving at a landing, they turned and proceeded down the next staircase. While there were no more dead bodies lying around now, the quality of the interior did not otherwise improve. Even with his compromised sight, Harry could tell his surroundings were universally dirty, peeling, or stained. He must not be in a very good part of whatever city he had ended up in.

Harry had been thinking about…his captor, and the dead they had just passed. Both wore green, but there was no coherent uniform, only a shared color palette. He wondered what kind of organization that signified. His companion's purple attire probably indicated that she was part of a different group. A competing one? Was that why she had freed them?

Regardless of her reasons, Harry was grateful, even though the ability to single-handedly dispense such a swath of death as he had seen in order to accomplish it was unsettling. While he was nearly certain that she wasn't an Auror, and it seemed unlikely that she was a normal police officer ( _unless she was undercover!_ part of his mind jumped in eagerly), he was finding it difficult to condemn her murdering people who kidnapped children. In an ideal world, there really _should_ have been a trial and proper justice…but what was done was done, and she very well might not have had a choice.

An odd feeling, like some memory wanted to manifest but was unable, tickled at his mind for several seconds before fading.

A third flight of steps after another grimy landing found Harry still pondering the nature of his rescuer.

The woman was a veritable walking arsenal of muggle weaponry. She was carrying a military-looking rifle, a shotgun hung off her shoulder by its strap, and a pistol was stuffed in her waistband. Her pockets rattled and bulged with what could only be ammunition, and she had what looked like a knife strapped to her left forearm. Harry wished his vision was more reliable - he really would've liked to get a better sense of her features. For now, all he could be sure of was that she was tall, dark-haired, and tattooed. In addition to the letters showing where her midriff was exposed, Harry had also caught glimpses of swirling designs on her upper arms, but his unaugmented eyesight was too compromised to discern further detail.

Still, what he had at his disposal painted an unusual portrait. The woman was highly individual, accustomed to violence, and very competent, reminding him of some kind of odd cross between Mad-Eye Moody and Nymphadora Tonks. Her motivations were not entirely clear, but at least somewhat altruistic. The tattoos made Harry think that it likely she was a hitwizard, or some kind of mundane mercenary, as he had never encountered such decorations on the more reputable enforcers of law. Given that she had introduced herself as 'boss' she must be a leader of some kind, though that wasn't the most formal of titles. Harry knew he didn't have the complete picture yet.

Wait, she had told him what she was boss of, hadn't she? Harry struggled to remember, but the name did not return to him.

At the next landing, his musings were disrupted in a rather spectacular manner. Just as their motley procession turned a corner of the stairs, they were suddenly face-to-face with a green-clad group coming up the other way. A second's stunned pause stretched on both sides before all hell broke loose.

Explosions of sound tore at Harry's eardrums as multiple firearms rose and discharged in rapid succession, but he was too busy diving for cover to see who was getting hit. However, in an unfortunate misjudgment, he missed the floor and found himself tumbling down the next flight of steps, along with several surprised persons not quick enough to avoid his flailing limbs. Four bodies arrived at the fourth landing in a jumbled heap, and two of them failed to rise. The first had broken his neck, while the other had died prior to descending, a small round hole in his temple.

That left a single Son of Samedi and Harry Potter dazedly facing off as a full-blown firefight thundered one level above them. The Son began to line up his pistol, but Harry stuck out desperately, slugging his attacker in the shoulder and causing him to prematurely fire into the wall. He was unable to dodge the man's fist however, and keeled over as it crashed into his gut, winding him.

More by luck than anything else, the wizard's foot instinctively swung upwards, catching his opponent in the crotch, which dropped the man to the floor beside him, groaning. The gun spun away over the concrete, and Harry felt a brief thrill of victory - which vanished as swiftly as he was grappled. Thrashing about, he tried to do as much damage as possible, but received a solid knee to the mouth, then felt his head slammed into the railing, which put an end to effective resistance.

As his wits returned, Harry saw his green-clad assailant retrieving the lost weapon.. Too dazed to rise himself, Harry laughed weakly through the blood in his mouth. The other trained the gun on him and their eyes locked.

Harry weakly raised a hand and pointed a finger back in morbid parody.

"Bang bang, tosser," he coughed, and waited to die.

The subsequent gunshot was deafening.

The thug's weapon, and the forearm holding it, separated from their owner in a spray of gore. Then a second higher-pitched report sounded, and the amputated gang member staggered before sliding down the wall into a heap, a red crater above his ear.

Harry looked up to see the woman who'd rescued him and the foreign girl both holding smoking weapons. Motionless green figures were sprawled around them, inarguably dead. Harry blinked through the haze of head trauma, poor vision, and still-persistent drugs, and finally realized he hadn't been shot.

The young girl turned back to gather the children, and the woman descended and helped Harry to his feet.

"You're my kind of stupid, kid," she said in a tone of approval.

Harry was spared figuring out whether he considered that a compliment by the renewed contortion of his intestines.

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Their mixed group made it to ground level without further incident, though Harry had to rely on the boss's arm to stay upright, since most of his strength seemed to have vanished with his adrenaline. Then they waited in tense silence in the building's doorway for almost five minutes while the woman directed pointed glares at the pedestrians who slowed to look at them. Recipients invariably found they had pressing business elsewhere, and often sped up their pace significantly. One middle-class man carrying a briefcase actually pulled an abrupt about-face and took off at a brisk jog.

Finally, Harry heard the roar of a very large motor, and moments later a massive and violently yellow bus turned a corner and skidded to a halt outside of the building.

Rectangular, snub-nosed, and with many dark windows, the lengthy conveyance bore significant evidence of rough handling, long scrapes marring the paint of its flanks. Even with this damage, Harry could still read the giant lettering on its side, which ran to the effect of: 'We can get you anywhere! -Stilwater Transit Department' in looping blue letters.

He felt the woman's arm hook under his again, and allowed himself to be assisted toward the garish vehicle waiting in the street. Meanwhile, several purple-clad figures were disembarking from a low-sitting car that had pulled up behind the bus, and taking up guard positions around it. They were all dressed in as motley a fashion as the woman supporting him though none of them were as heavily armed.

The driver of the bus, a dark-skinned man clad in mulberry & white sporting attire, with sunlight flashing off the giant silver chain around his neck, was hailed by Harry's companion as he jumped out.

"Damn Pierce, think you coulda got anything _more_ eye-catching than this psychedelic tourist-toter?" she asked.

"Man, fuck you," the other replied in a good-humored voice undercut with defensive vehemence. "You said 'hurry,' and this was the best I could jack on short notice! We don't exactly have armored personnel carriers on standby."

"Hmm, there's a thought," remarked the woman, momentarily checking her progress toward the bus. "But it can wait 'till later. Help me get this one on board, he's heavier than he looks."

"We're here for him?" asked Pierce incredulously, nevertheless stepping forward to lend a shoulder to the stumbling Harry. Then he caught sight of Se-Bin leading the posse of children out of the apartment block after them, and promptly did a double take.

"Wait, we're here for KIDS!?" he exclaimed.

"Kids the Sons of Samedi were planning on cutting up for their organs, Pierce, yes we are," replied his boss in a flat tone. "You got a problem with that?"

Pierce spluttered for a moment before finding his speech again.

"I- it- Hell no, I don't have a problem! You're doing what you gotta do! It's just...shit, I thought you wanted us to help some hos to a party or something, not...fucking black market kids! This world's messed up."

"'Prostitutes' please Pierce - 'escorts' if you want to be classy. And yes, yes it is," She hooked her arms around Harry's torso and lifted him bodily through the bus's doors as her companion maneuvered the young man's feet. Harry was feeling rather dizzy, both from the motion, and the effort of trying to follow the conversation. He gratefully collapsed into the bench behind the driver's seat.

Children filed past him, various expressions of relief and fear on their indistinct faces as they followed Se-Bin's directions, and situated themselves in the rows behind him.

"Watch your language, I've already capped one guy front of them, maybe we can limit their trauma a bit," the woman was advising Pierce in a low voice.

Pierce stared at her in skepticism, then shrugged. "Sheesh, alright…though if they've seen you shoot a guy, it probably won't do much good at this point."

The woman favored him with a _look_.

"Okay, okay, okay!" he appended hastily. "I'm watching my mouth. It's watched. I'm good."

"Alright then," she said, her eyes flickering back to count up their passengers. "We've got 'em all, let's get this clown cart back to the hideout. And then I'm driving it off a bridge so I don't end up with a vendetta against the color yellow."

"Whatever you want." Pierce dropped into the driver's seat. "You drive here?"

"Took a cab," she replied, sitting down across from Harry next to a box of curved metal paperweights.

"Okay, cool," the man said. He closed the doors, situated himself, and pressed the gas pedal, the bus lurching into motion with a growl. The purple car pulled in behind them, forming a miniature convoy which picked up speed as they turned onto a wider road.

"So, boss, what are you planning to do with these peeps? We ain't exactly a charity."

She ran a hand over her face.

"Honestly? I don't know. I hadn't expected anything this bad when I decided to bust in there. Maybe some goats or mail-order brides, but…they're kids. Just kids."

"Hey, I'm with your decision to rescue them, one-hundred percent," replied Pierce. "It's just now we've got a problem on our hands. We're not equipped to take care of children, and it wouldn't be safe, even if we were."

"I'm open to ideas. Half of them don't even understand English – I want you to track down some of our people to translate once we get back the crib. And arrange some food for them. I'll give you cash for sleeping bags-"

"Hell boss, I'll buy them myself-"

"-Thanks, Pierce. We'll have to put them up for a few days while I find something more long-term. I want a triple guard on purgatory until this is worked out. Samedi and ronin are pressing too close for comfort lately."

The thread of conversation, already tenuous, slipped away from Harry completely. He tuned out the hum of unfamiliar words and looked out at the city passing by, desperately wishing for some glasses. It would have been comforting to even attach an architectural style to the passing blurs.

What was he even going to do when he figured out where he was? What had happened that led to his being a captive in the first place? And what sort of-

"Boss."

The word cut across his thoughts, sudden, apprehensive, _urgent_.

Pierce was looking up at the giant mirror while his leader was bent on re-tying a stubborn bootlace.

"Boss!" he repeated, almost shouting.

"What?" she looked up.

"Trouble," he answered in a strained voice, jerking his head towards the rear.

The woman looked back to see three green vehicles accelerating through traffic towards them. Even as her eyes widened, a plume of smoke detached itself from the leading pickup truck and spiraled towards the bus's escorting vehicle.

"RPG!" she yelled.

The purple car's driver must have seen it coming, since they swerved hard to the right, but the rocket had been aimed low, and hit the street just left of the rear bumper. A resounding BOOM split the air as the lowrider was thrown spinning by the blast, almost overturning before coming to rest on the sidewalk. The pursuing green cars ignored it and sped on, closing on the yellow bus.

The lady across the aisle from Harry grabbed a handful of objects from the box beside her - which Harry belatedly realized were ammunition magazines - and unslung her fearsome-looking rifle. She had just stood when another trail of smoke burst from the green pickup and came rushing for the bus.

"EVERYBODY DOWN!" she bellowed, diving to the floor.

Unlike its predecessor, this second projectile went high, barely clipping the top of the tour vehicle above the back window. But barely was still enough. The explosion tore open the entire rear of the transport, shattering windows and pulverizing metal and plastic indiscriminately. One child, too slow to duck, screamed as a flying shard of something opened a gash along his neck. Se-bin pulled the boy down and began applying pressure to the wound. The rear of the bus was now on fire, vomiting streamers of black smoke into the rushing air and turning their vehicle into a hellish Halloween float.

Remarkably, the engine seemed to have been unaffected, for their transport surged forward as Pierce stomped the gas pedal, sending them hurtling down the parkway. Traffic was scattering all around them, pedestrians diving down alleys and into side shops as smaller caliber guns began discharging from the pursuing green cars' windows.

The boss had not even waited for the debris to settle.

Hefting her own weapon, she changed down the aisle to the bus's posterior, and standing tall, unleashed a salvo of full-auto weapon fire toward their green-liveried assailants. Her first target, a sporty-looking coupe, almost immediately caught bullets in both front tires, wobbling into a spin and coming to rest facing backwards with its pastel bodywork otherwise untouched. Answering shots lashed back at her, but the woman remained unruffled by the exchange, calmly crouching to swap magazines as a second pursuer fell back, a red blotch marring the driver's side glass. The unfortunate vehicle's door swung open, a body bounced out, and the sedan leapt back into motion, eager to make up lost ground.

That momentarily left only the green pickup truck an effective danger. It had closed to within fifteen yards, and as the burning bus's defender unleashed a fresh torrent of bullets, a figure rose from the flatbed and steadied a long metal tube in his arms. The rifle's line of fire marched up the windscreen and found his head just as he sighted on his smoking yellow target once more. Hit just below the chin, the man slumped down, fingers reflexively pulling the trigger as the unsupported weapon dipped under its own weight.

 **CRUMPH!**

Its initial armor penetrating charge propelled the rocket almost clear through to the street, where the main payload went off right under the cab. The truck actually leap off the tarmac while expanding into its component parts, doors flying off sideways, hood hurtling upward, panels buckling, engine splintering, and drivetrain shattered by the deadly force erupting within. A skeletal frame hit the street, skidded to a stop, and _burned_.

Everyone in the bus was pulled sideways as Pierce avoided a garbage truck, while the third car now drew back into firing range, peppering the fleeing conveyance with bullets. The boss returned fire on them, but her target had begun weaving unpredictably, and most of the shots went wide. Kneeling to reload, she found only one magazine remaining in her pocket. Two new green vehicles were pulling up alongside the old one and would soon encircle the fugitive bus.

"Pierce, I need some fucking ammo right now, goddammit!" Harry heard the woman yelling as bullets whickered overhead.

"I'm kinda driving here!" Pierce yelled back, and bit off a curse as they narrowly missed a minivan changing lanes."Don't swear in front of the kids, my ass," he muttered as the bus made a squealing course correction into the oncoming lane to avoid cars stopped at an intersection. Horns blared as cross-traffic swerved to avoid them.

Harry, his thoughts flowing like an untroubled steam oddly distant from the chaos surrounding him, appraised the situation. His rescuer was barely keeping the enemy at bay and they would close the moment her ammunition ran out. The scary girl who might have helped was trying to keep a child from bleeding to death, while the rest of the children were cowering under seats and screaming at the top of their lungs. Pierce had to keep driving. It was up to Harry, and he wasn't even sure if he could walk.

He staggered upright. Harry's heartbeat was pounding so loudly in his ears he barely registered the confusion of gunfire and vehicle noise, but it was irrelevant anyway. All his attention was directed towards his objective. With an ungraceful lunge, the young man caught up the box from the other seat, and turned to face down the bus. He took a step forward, lost his balance, and began to fall.

Denial and Gryffindor stubbornness turned the fall into a stumbling run, which carried him almost the bus's length before an irretrievably misplaced foot sent Harry plummeting downwards. Desperate, he thrust his burden outward, sacrificing all chance of gentle landing to get the vital package to its destination. Moments later, he slammed into the deck, bloodying his nose and almost knocking himself out, even as the box slid two meters and hit the woman's boot.

Blinking, Harry looked up to see their defender reload in one smooth motion and continue her fusillade.

Smoke and fire whipped around her figure, hair dancing in the turbulent air, as she fired prolonged bursts from the shoulder, swaying instinctively to counter the unsteady motion of the bus with a grace that would have made her the envy of any broom rider or seasoned sailor. Shell casings clattered to the floor about her, glimmering golden motes in the uncertain light. Out of Harry's sightline, something exploded violently, its metallic keen abruptly giving way to prolonged crunching. The woman fired, shifted, fired again, an epitome of poise amid destruction and violence.

In that moment Harry would easily have believed this woman of angelic or infernal provenance, a heroine out of myth and legend, even the goddess of war herself on earth in mortal form.

Finally, she stopped firing and lowered her weapon, staring back at the carnage in the roadway behind them. Harry glimpsed the last car on their tail coming to a shuddering halt, black smoke pouring from its perforated hood. Its destroyer was smiling - exultantly vibrant, demonically delighted...carefree and joyful. A strange excitement stirred in Harry's chest; a mixture of horror, awe, and something almost approaching jealousy at the unbridled self-assurance in the woman's demeanor…

Painful heat intruded on his back, and the young wizard rolled away towards a seat that _wasn't_ on fire. Awareness of the aches in his body, the wetness on his face, and the skull-pounding headache between his temples began to surge back in. Blinking away tears from pain and smoke, Harry coughed and winced, letting his head tilt to rest against the blessedly cool leather behind him.

Gentle hands cupped his face, and he refocused to see the supernatural valkyrie examining him critically. At this close range, Harry finally registered the copious scars crisscrossing her broad, pockmarked features, and the dark orchid of her eyes – a hue he had not believed it possible for humans to exhibit.

"You haven't broken your nose," the woman said with the reassuring air of an experienced medic, "though how, I've no idea. It'll be tender for a while."

Harry shrugged, fighting the mad impulse to laugh, at what he didn't know.

"Guess that makes me the Luckiest-Boy-Who-Ever-Lived" he said, and descended into helpless giggling.

The woman snorted, and her mouth twitched into an amused smirk as she regarded him.

"Right, you're still not off the happy juice yet. We're almost home, you can rest soon."

"Thank Merlin for that," said Harry amiably as his laughter morphed into hiccups. He accepted the boss's hand up and promptly collapsed into the seat he'd been leaning against. This had been one of the strangest days of his existence, but, despite everything, he was still alive. Weary but victorious, Harry Potter smiled, and his rescuer smiled back.

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Cohesive perception of time began to falter for him soon afterwards.

Harry retained a dim impression of the woman getting a fire extinguisher to douse the back of the bus, as well as pulling out a phone and making several calls from the seat beside him, but it was taking an increasing amount of effort to simply remain upright, and gravity was misbehaving again.

Then she disappeared, and might have come back with her hands covered in blood. He wasn't sure, since she subsequently morphed into Hermione and offered him an assortment of cotton candy and supercilious life advice. The sick feeling he'd been combating returned with a vengeance, and Harry spent the remainder of the trip focused on his breathing.

After an unknown number of minutes, the bus came to a stop, and Harry fell over into someone's waiting arms. There was motion and talking, and his surroundings changed from a cloudy, slate-grey out-of-doors to a subdued, mauve inside-doors. He had the barest idea of floating down steps and through hallways, and of voices speaking distantly, but the world continued retreating, and as he was set down on something soft and comfortable, every sensation melted away into soothing nothingness.

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 **Next time: the Boss finds a girl at a party, it rains, and feelings are expressed.**


	4. Boss II: Riders in the Storm

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Heavy bass is thudding indistinctly overhead, blending into the muted sounds of boisterous students. As far as Stilwater U blowouts go, this is one of the most popular I've seen, and I wonder how much of that is down to the Loa Dust my Saints are selling.

 _As long as our product moves, I'm happy._

I'm currently camped out in the recovery-room for the party occurring above me. It's a poorly-lit basement with the traditional accoutrements: broken TV, plenty of couch and floor space for people to pass out on, backup kegs. Two figures were already slumped in the armchairs when I got down here, a third turned up not long ago. A couple of boys really getting into their makeout session and a few members of Gamma Omicron Theta playing checkers with a chess set round out my present company. None of them have bothered me, and I've just been letting my thoughts tumble.

Earlier I was up at the party proper, did a little dancing, had a few beers, and was even hit on by a pledge too drunk to know any better.

 _It was actually kinda cute – he must'a been a theatre major to make it through that whole sonnet while hammered._

His less inebriated friends had hauled him off the moment they got a look at my face, obviously recognizing me – I'm pretty distinctive, as if the attire didn't already give it away – but I would have let him walk regardless. Shakespeare's endearing in my book, though it won't shift any clothing: a good opener, with the potential for intriguing sequels. A pity he'll probably be too scared to try again once sober.

 _I don't toss people through plate glass windows just for asking…aside from that one asshole sophomore year…but he was spiking drinks._

Totally justified.

 _Not that said fact left me any less expelled._

Over-privileged upper-class jock with millionaire parents versus delinquent on a scholarship? No points for guessing who the administration sided with.

 _Whatever, ancient history now. If attractive freshmen with a penchant for Shakespeare aren't willing to gamble on one-night stands, I'm not going out of my way for them. I can get my exercise at the gym just as easily._

I have been hitting weights pretty hard lately, trying to rebuild the strength from before my incapacitation. Throwing creeps though windows one-handed used to be cakewalk for me, but now I'd definitely struggle. It's going to be a long road back to my old bulk.

 _At least I AM getting stronger, however gradually. And I'd swear I'm thirty pounds up from what I remember being able to lift with arms this size. Maybe my muscles are learning to be more efficient? Don't think that's how it works, particularly after a coma, but I'm no doctor. Maybe Shaundi would have an idea. She usually does._

Shaundi is the main reason I'm at this party at all. Not to ask about fitness – though maybe I should, she's remarkably trim for anyone, let alone someone with her lifestyle – but to see what her take on my current difficulties is. She's the best sounding board I've got, and probably a lot smarter than me when it comes down to it, for all she can't shoot too straight. Better that, than the converse – markswomanship's a skill that comes with practice, but you can't teach clever. I could do with a bit of clever right now.

I sigh.

 _And we arrive at why I'm down here – it's a place to think while I wait for my Number Three._

Now that the whirlwind of the day has settled, I'm left facing some problems, the most pressing of which are currently lodged at our crib in human form.

 _One adult and nine children, who've all seen hell, and all need someplace to go. What do I do with them?_

The kids definitely can't stay with the Saints. They'd be useful as errand runners, but probably get caught in crossfire eventually. One already took a fatal bullet during the stair fight, and while word from the hospital is the one wounded on the bus is stable, I'd prefer not to deal with that again in the future. That's even assuming they'd want to stay, which, if they're at all smart, they won't.

I'd prefer not to just kick them onto the street. They have families to get back to, possibly in distant countries, but can't make it without help. However, I can't exactly drive over to Washington DC and drop each one off at the appropriate embassy either.

 _Yeah, that's a terrible idea. I'd get stopped before I was halfway done, then there'd be a long list of questions followed by a short trip to jail. And even if I did fight my way out, I'd probably be topping AMW in no time. I need a different angle. Hmm…_

If the actual Saints Row Mission hadn't been turned into a damned tourist trap, they could'a gone there, but, thanks to Ultor and their desecration of my home turf, that's no longer an option. I really hate corporations.

 _Though I guess technically, it was Hughes who set the whole 'Row Renewal' train in motion. Good things he's dead, otherwise I'd be sending him a very special gift for that. Maybe a-_

"Hey boss, wassup?"

Broken from my reverie by the timely arrival of my lovely lieutenant, I can't help but smile as we exchange hand slaps.

Shaundi looks well. She's got that easy smile that says her day's been going fine, and an aura of relaxation that's a balm to my churning thoughts. She's also got what looks like four 'Stilwater Skeeters' pennants tucked in the waist of her jeans, forming an impromptu tutu – which makes me grin. More importantly, she's carrying two Stout Louts, wonderful woman that she is.

"Shaundi, you're a sight for sore eyes. Pull up some couch, stay a while, and listen."

She drops down next to me, proffering one of her bottles. I open it in my belt buckle and take a healthy swig.

 _Ah –that hits the spot. Didn't realize I was getting so thirsty._

"Word on the street is the Samedi are reeling," she says. "So what's got you all uptight?"

 _Buckle your seatbelt beautiful, this story's a doozie._

It's pretty simple to describe how my day has gone, less so how I feel about it.

On the one hand, I have no regrets about the trail of dead Samedi, or having rescued people who were up against dissection, but on the other, now I've got to take responsibility for them, which means finding them all someplace to go. I don't like kids, and just having them at the hideout is raising my stress level considerably. Then there's the fact that I should probably take this opening to go full-out against the Samedi.

 _Which is frustrating, since the Ronin are on the back foot at the moment, and I kinda owe it to Johnny to facilitate his revenge first._

Sure, Jyunichi's dead, but the ones who held his chain, Akuji Shogo and his father Kazuo, are still at large. I won't be comfortable fighting a war on two fronts until my Saints are better armed, but that means I'm gonna have to pick my battles for now. Don't even get me started on how frustrating it is to be leaving Maero and Jessica and all the Brotherhood unopposed at the moment.

 _If only all those kids had been grown-ups, this would be simple. No need to lockdown our crib, or have four whole squads tied to babysitting duty. And I still need figure out what to do with the one adult I DID find._

"At first, I thought to just drop him at a hospital and be done with it," I tell Shaundi, "but now…I don't know. Harry showed some spirit. Ran the length of a burning bus to bring me ammunition, all while tripping out of his mind. That's got potential."

"You think he'd make a good Saint?"

"Maybe. Tell you what, Shaundi, that's your new assignment. Feel him out, and if you think he'd be good to have on board, recruit him. If nothing else, pump him for everything he saw during his time with the Sons before you cut him loose."

"You can count on me Boss."

 _There, one problem down._

Flopping over onto Shaundi's lap gives me a comfortable place to rest my head and a new perspective from which to appreciate her physique.

 _Which is remarkable. I totally planned this. Suave like a fox._

"I just don't know what to do with the damn kids," I reply, returning to my larger issue. "Can't hold them indefinitely, can't drop them off somewhere they'll be killed or recaptured – which rules most of this city out – and if I try and take them across state lines to DC, I'll probably get arrested."

"Sounds like we need a third party to negotiate for us, Boss," says Shaundi, tapping her fingers against the armrest in thought while her other hand toys with my hair. "Trouble is we haven't really been making those sort of friends."

I scowl at the ceiling fan.

"No shit."

 _Not that I regret going after my competition first – instead of building connections – but that's left us without fronts to help in the legitimate channels when needed._

"It's too bad most of the old Saints are gone," she muses. "I met a few people while I was on the inside and Johnny might know more, but most of the one who were really connected are dead or missing."

 _True enough. Hell, Johnny and I are the only first-generation Saints still Saints, and at liberty in Stilwater, that I know of._

Julius has completely vanished, which is probably for the best, since I'm pretty bitter about his not reviving the Saints whenever he got out of prison. If I could trust Troy not to arrest me, I might bring this directly to him, but I haven't yet made up my mind on that score. Dex is still alive somewhere, but in a line of work that pisses Johnny off, ruling him out. Everybody else I remember is certifiably dead.

 _I barely had time to meet most of our affiliates before I was blown up anyway, and I sure as hell don't remember their names, doubt they'll remember me. So much is gone…_

"Maybe I can find someone at college willing to act a go-between for us," Shaundi says meditatively. "My ex, Ray, he's a librarian, and's got access to all sorts of information…"

 _A go-between…information…access…_

Lightning bolt.

 _If the old bastard's still alive-_

I surge to my feet, wondering how good my luck is.

"Thanks Shaundi, you're a gem!" _and I've got some bars to visit._

She smiles in wry confusion as I kiss her forehead and stride away.

"Take care of yourself Boss!" she calls after me. I toss her a wave as I fish for the keys in my back pocket.

 _Time to play some long odds…_

/\

_ ( ) _

( '==' )

'\/'

If I had actually hit the casino tonight, I would've made a killing. The person I'm looking for, who might've moved, been promoted, retired, or even died for all I knew, is sitting in the second haunt I check.

 _Good old 'Cranberry' Scagnelli, crookedest cop in Stilwater. He told me his actual first name once, back when he booked me for littering, but I can't remember it. His wife made lovely flan caramels though, I'd never forget those._

Before my coma, Cranberry was my go-to for official bribery. So long as you had some money to share, patrol cars would change routes, raids would be delayed, and paperwork would get masterfully bungled. To be sure, he passed everything he learned along to his superiors eventually, making himself indispensible to both gangbangers and police higher-ups, but for once, I don't care.

 _Today, that's exactly what I want him to do._

Scagnelli looks ten years older and twenty pounds heavier, but he's still got the same red face, greasy sideburns, and triple chin, with the same twinkle of amenable corruption in his eye. He spots me entering almost instantly, and his eyebrows rise, but nevertheless, he grins as I approach and sink into a seat across the table.

"Well, well, well, you look mighty familiar. I heard someone matching your description busted out of the pen not too long ago."

"Whole lotta people in the city" I reply blithely. "Some of them gotta have similar faces."

 _Though I'm not exactly easy to doppelganger._

"Well, whoever you are, I'm hoping you're not here to cause me trouble girlie-girl. I've already had a few, and couldn't swear to your identity in a court of law. Just looking to have a quiet evening out on the town."

I smile and signal for booze.

"I'm not looking for trouble either. Buy you a drink?"

"I wouldn't object."

It's good to see some things haven't changed. Plausible deniability has kept Cranberry safe for years, though I'm pretty sure that his appearance of low alcohol tolerance is just that – a façade. No matter how much I've seen the man drink, I've never seen him get stupid, merely strategically unable to remember certain things.

"Just enjoying my own quiet night out," I say. "I'm a little behind on news, figured I'd find a place to drink and hear what's happening. You seem like a pretty approachable guy, and I figured it's no fun to drink alone – you'll just end up talking to yourself."

"True enough, girlie. So much going on in this city, you'd think we're the world's landfill some days."

"Gang activity's on the rise lately, I think?"

"O, certainly," Cranberry responds, a sly gleam flashing in his eyes. "Why only today a bus went and got stolen before being shot to pieces by Greens and driven into the river. No one's sure why."

 _He always had a knack for ferreting out the heart of the matter._

"Very interesting," I speak casually. "Why, _I_ even heard that bus had terrified kids onboard in the process of abandoning their involuntary organ-donor cards."

Scagnelli's face darkens at that, and he scowls.

"Hadn't come across that little nugget. Stilwater didn't used to be so bad – damn trade port's bringing in all kinds of international trouble now. What compels you to bring this up?" he asks me, eyes narrowing.

I take a slow sip and cut to the chase.

"Well, our police department doesn't look too good when they can't seem to do much about gangs in the streets. But…say they were able to report on the absolute destruction of a Sons of Samedi black market operation, and parade some rescued kiddies in front of the media? If the concerned citizens who facilitated such a thing stayed out of the spotlight, it wouldn't really matter who they were, would it?"

A slow smile glides onto Cranberry's face and he chuckles.

"I like the sound of this hypothetical you're spinning, girlie-girl. Let me see if I can add some detail…"

It takes four beers and over an hour, but I walk out of the bar with a solid plan for offloading the kids onto the PD without anyone being the wiser. Finally back at my apartment, I fall asleep almost instantly.

/\

_ ( ) _

( '==' )

'\/'

The next morning passes in a rush of coordination, car trips, and, finally, shipping off the kids. I get my translators to inform the brats of what's going to happen beforehand so nobody panics, and in the end things go surprisingly smoothly.

The children are bundled into a few of my gang's cars – ones _without_ Saints liveries – and driven to an underground parking garage, where we wait while the condemned apartment over our heads is raided by the city SWAT. By the time the news vans get wind of the action and show up, the top floor of the building is a smoldering ruin, and plain-clothes officers have turned up to escort the kids out to the waiting municipal SUVs while cameras roll.

Each of them gets a wad of cash from me in exchange for forgetting they ever saw us, and then we just hold tight until the circus has packed up and we can drive back home. That night, I catch the news broadcasts proclaiming 'significant advances in fighting corruption in our city' and praising the efforts of the 'noble heroes in uniform.' I laugh so hard microwave casserole goes up my nose, and Shaundi has to hit me repeatedly on the back.

Still, with that major headache cleared up, there's nothing to distract me from tomorrow, and I spend the rest of the evening curled up in bed. A large part of me wants to put the funeral off, which is stupid and just denial speaking. Nothing's going to bring Aisha back; all we can do now is pay our respects.

It's only really beginning to sink in that there'll never be a chance talk to her again. The last couple months and those I had before my coma are all the knowing her I get. And with Aisha gone, Johnny's my only friend in the world that I've had longer than half a year. These thoughts hurt, but I can't stop them.

 _It's not like I'm really alone. Shaundi is finding her feet as a Saint, and she's pretty likable, if a bit naïve. Pierce…honestly isn't too bad either, though I'd never admit that to his face. He's irresistibly teaseable, but shown he can back up his big mouth. I should make a point of hanging out with him more. They're all good lieutenants, inexperienced, but good. I've got to protect them though. Carlos was just the same, and he died anyway._

There have been too many fucking funerals already.

We've lost quite a few others besides Carlos and Aisha, their names I don't all remember, but I go to every wake. Good men and women, loyal, killers…Saints.

 _Agh, I just need to stop thinking._

I urn the radio up, and lose myself to music for the remainder of the evening.

Before I finally doze off, I hear the announcer forecasting rain.

/\

_ ( ) _

( '==' )

'\/'

I end being the one to pick up Aisha's sister at the airport. Remi moved away from Stilwater nearly six years ago, and there's nothing much I can say to her, but she doesn't seem to want conversation anyway.

 _I'm not feeling social myself, admittedly._

Loop traffic is light, and my Raycaster purrs contentedly as we weave through it, a stark contrast to my own unsettled spirits.

I feel that damn itch, but no one's handy to shoot at the moment, and I know a drink would do almost as well. I'm pretty sure Johnny'll want to get plastered after we've put Aisha to rest, so at least that's in the cards. My shrink would probably have a mouthful to say about our coping methods, if he were still around. Not that I'd care, but I almost miss his disappointment in me sometimes – it reminds me of my Father.

The morning's been punctuated with light rain, but the sky really opens up just as we arrive at Mourning Woods. Based on the darkness overhead, it's going to be coming down for a while, and I'm glad Remi thought to pack herself an umbrella. There's one somewhere in my trunk, but I hate the thought of having to hold one still, so I don't bother looking for it.

 _Sooner feel the rain on my skin anyway._

Johnny is already there, also sans rain guard, along with the two Saints I'd had watching over Aisha's house. I have to grope for a moment to recall their names, but I do: Jasper and Santana. Both newly-minted, just canonized a week ago. I tell them I appreciate what they've done, and their new duty is guarding Remi. They nod like eager puppies and something within me shifts unpleasantly.

 _I was that way once. It didn't turn out well._

A third vehicle brings us the priest, and that's our full assembly. It's a painful thing to realize how few people Aisha had in her life, how isolated she was in her retirement. Tears are forming in my eyes, and I am thankful for the rain.

Empty words about peace and the afterlife and grief float by, and I have to keep pushing the ache in my throat down into the ball of anger in my chest so neither can get the better of me. The last thing I need is to break apart when Johnny deserves my support. He hasn't said a word since we got here, just keeps standing, watching the grave with the most unreadable expression I've ever seen on his face. My heart aches for him, and for the wound I can't heal, can't even soothe.

Small memories keep welling up, as if sprouting in response to the water soaking my hair and suit.

 _Aisha and I braiding each other's hair while we try and one-up each other with bad date stories. Laughter in the car as we drive away from the ruins of Kingdom Come Records. Aisha spluttering over Thai food. The smile on her face when I turned up after disrupting Johnny's trial. Aisha hugging Johnny. Aisha singing. Aisha kickboxing. Aisha grinning at jokes she didn't want to admit were funny._

So many moments of life lost to the past, with no more to come.

 _Fuck off, I'll cry if I fucking want to. Not like anyone will see._

Then, even through the staccato burr of precipitation, I catch the whine of motorcycles. I stiffen.

 _That cowardly shit of a motherfucker wouldn't dare-_

Except he _has_.

Akuji Shogo and his posse of incompetent pricks are pulling up to our ceremony, heedless of propriety, pushing their fucking noses into a place they have NO business being. I turn to order my crew to get Remi out of here, but they're already halfway to the other car with her. Smart boys.

This is going to get ugly.

 _I am going to make SURE of it. Twenty men with you, Akuji? I've got Gat. You needed an army. Fuck that, you needed TWO armies._

Akuji Jr. has no idea how much shit he just stepped into. He starts whining like a trust-fund kid losing car privileges.

"You two have humiliated my family for the last time!"

 _Dead._

 _Man._

 _Walking._

 _Pistol in my suit. Fifteen steps to the car. More guns in the trunk. Plenty of cover._

"Leave little boy," Johnny replies, absolutely poker-faced. Akuji doesn't know Gat, and he's too stupid to take the hint anyway, but I can feel the threat building behind that controlled mask.

 _If you'd opened fire immediately Akuji, maybe, MAYBE you would have had a chance._

Instead, he's too busy with his hissy fit. Even those girls in my Lit class weren't this annoying.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Johnny spares him a contemptuous glance before returning to his attention to Aisha's grave.

"Fuck off Akuji," he says in that level tone only one millimeter from mayhem. "I'm not killing anyone at Eesh's funeral. Tonight, tomorrow…you name a time and I will gladly fuck you up…but not now."

I can see the idiot ignoring this, just like he ignored everything else that might keep him breathing a little longer. He sneers.

"How noble…nobility is sorely overrated."

He takes his time drawing a sub-machinegun and racking the slide with all the pointless arrogance of youth.

 _If you had acted with nobility, you wouldn't be about to die,_ I think, but there's no pity for him – I'm going to enjoy this.

My hand whips up, faster than any of the Ronin are in following their leader, and my first shot hits squarely on Akuji's firearm, cracking the housing and rendering the weapon useless. I savor the consternation in his eyes as I dive behind a gravestone, Gat splitting seamlessly the opposite way. There are yells of terror and alarm from the priest and the Ronin respectively as gunfire breaks out and battle is joined.

The next few moments are all running, rolling, and firing back. Five Ronin are dead before I even make it to my car, one to me and four because of Johnny, who is firing his pistol with the careful mechanical precision of an assassin.

Bullets whicker past my head and ricochet off the Raycaster and thru its windows, but I don't care – I've found what we need. I grab a 34 and my shotgun, shoulder a couple of K-6s, and pause.

 _I'd forgotten that was in here._

The AR-200 SAW I'd used on the farm raid gleams up at me, along with its two remaining boxes of ammunition. I feel the smile tugging at my mouth but can't linger over the good fortune - there are a great many people to kill.

I dodge my way back to Gat, who's taken shelter behind a little mausoleum and is still whittling down Shogo's meat-shields with his careful shooting. Dumping our arsenal onto the muddy ground by him, I lean out and cap a yellow-clad figure trying to get behind us. Johnny takes only a moment to trade his pistol for the SAW and deftly checks the feed as I keep us covered. Satisfied that nothing is amiss with the weapon, Johnny taps my shoulder.

"You go left and flank them to shit," he says. "I'll bet Akuji runs…don't let him get away."

We briefly clasp hands.

"I won't, Johnny."

 _No matter what I have to do to stop him, the bastard stays alive until I bring him back for you._

I leave my rifle hanging off its strap and sprint out with my shotgun leveled, as a hurricane of fire erupts behind me. The SAW screams like a rampaging demon, one long continuous snarl of thunder and metal. The group of Ronin surrounding Akuji are caught completely off-guard, many torn apart by the high-caliber fire while the rest start falling back in disarray. I weave through headstones, yellow figures blooming with red each time my gun kicks, the sheeting rain blurring my sight and muting cries from the wounded and dying.

 _Get to Akuji._

A Ronin ahead of me is using someone's grandmother as a shield, wildly spraying an Urban in my direction…to no effect as my leap lands a solid heel to his face, and he staggers backward to the ground. I land in a crouch, then bring the butt of my weapon down on his face. Twice. His twitching only stops when the old lady pulls a derringer from her purse and shoots him cleanly through the heart from where she's taken shelter behind a gravestone.

 _That's my Stilwater._

A car slews to a halt nearby, and more Ronin leap out – reinforcements. I offer each a personalized hello from my trusty sidearm and they go down in sequence.

 _Keep moving, keep firing. Get to Akuji._

The sound of a motor is rapidly growing behind me and I spin to open up with the rifle, aiming for the bike's tires before it can run me down. The front tread bursts, and the vehicle wobbles drunkenly before slipping out to catch on protruding masonry and send its rider flying. Her body hits hard and I augment the broken bones with some high velocity puncture wounds.

I continue forward, reloading, closing on my target.

 _Get to Akuji._

Most of those who rolled in initially are dead at this point, and Johnny has only stopped firing to change magazines. Another of the Ronin's ostentatious gold cars comes screeching around a hillock, but he just holds the trigger down, shredding windshield, occupants, and ultimately, the car itself. As its wreck passes him, it bursts into flame, and moments later meets a tree head-on, sending a wave of fire outward as the gas tank ruptures. I spot a figure sprinting away ahead and give chase before I even properly recognize Shogo. I herd him with sporadic bursts from my K-6 while Gat mops up the remaining Ronin and follows in my wake.

Another wave of his henchmen loom out of the pouring rain and once more gunfire is exchanged.

I drop two, Gat drops three and I feel something hot furrow across my shoulder as I kneel to reload again. Then a stray bullet knocks my gun from my fingers as a figure bursts around the grave I'm sheltering behind. I kick them in the gut and grab the nearest thing to hand – a shovel – which I swing with all my strength right into their face. The shovel makes a sound usually reserved for damp earth and tree roots while the goon goes down sluggishly, jaw peeling open as I extract my makeshift weapon.

Johnny has dispatched the last two opponents facing us and we continue the pursuit of Shogo.

He's running for the caretaker's house, and as I crest the rise I see him reach the already-open garage and hop onto a motorbike waiting there.

 _You marginally clever bastard._

He had this escape set up.

 _Bet he wasn't expecting to need it though._

I reach the garage seconds after Akuji burns out of it, a look of fear stamped across his features. Johnny is hot on my heels and I look back at him. Our eyes meet for a moment – and then I kick a second bike to life and slide onto it, while he turns and raises his weapon to deal with the next wave of Ronin reinforcements.

Two more cars are barreling at him, charging through the rain, but Gat holds his ground, slamming home the last magazine into the SAW. I rocket out of the garage as the booms of shotguns and pistols intercut with the continuous chatter of his ferocious weapon. There are screams, and an explosion, but I ignore them all.

 _Get to Akuji._

The brat took off down the road like the straight-laced pansy that he is, but that's not the fastest way to the graveyard's exit. Slewing hard left, I take off down the fence, clumps of muddy earth and grass blooming out behind me as the motorcycle tears a rut in the wet soil. Steering with the accelerator, I flirt with the edges of control, skidding over the slick ground, slaloming between open graves, statuary, and headstones. The rush is incredible, but it's secondary to my overriding directive.

 _Get to Akuji._

A small hillock grants me few seconds of air, and then I'm slamming down, sighting the cemetery gate.

A glance locates Akuji racing up the drive to my right. He's bent over the handlebars in desperation, looking back in anticipation of pursuit. Rational thought abandoned, guns forgotten, I open the throttle fully, closing perpendicularly to his direction of travel. At the last moment he registers my approach but by then it's too late. My front tire slams into his and we both are thrown spinning of course and launched into the air. For a moment I'm flying, then-

 _-Pain, impact, tumbling, rolling uncontrollably before-_

-Coming to a halt and immediately springing up to stalk back towards my prey. In retrospect, than was probably one of the stupidest maneuvers I've ever attempted, but I seem to have come out of it unharmed, through a combination of what must be reflexes, adrenaline, and pure dumb luck.

Akuji Shogo didn't have the same fortune with his own dismount, however – he's flopping about dazedly, trying to reach a holdout pistol which I kick off into the scrub. He scrabbles for his sword next, but I pull that away too and snap it before discarding the pieces. A solid nut-shot serves to quell his resistance for the moment, and I grab him by a foot and start dragging him back to meet his fate.

 _Got you, Akuji. I got you, you fucker._

The bastard isn't light by any stretch of the imagination, but nothing short of a freight train would be able to hold me back. Shogo only starts to regain coherence as I come back in sight of Johnny and even then it's only to spasm weakly and beg for his life. I don't register any of the words.

 _Pathetic to the end. Fourty-odd against two and now you're the only one left. It never pays to be a coward when your sins come home to roost._

I pull the little shit to his feet by the scruff of the neck and heave him towards Gat, who lays him out with a single punch. Thunder rumbles overhead. I step back and turn away, keeping an eye out for anyone who would interfere, and giving my friend room to work.

"Get up," orders Johnny, his voice absolutely level.

Shogo rolls to his feet, squares off, trying for a kick, which Johnny stops cold before dealing a hammer-blow to the man's leg. I hear a femur crack, and relish the whimper of pain.

 _Make him suffer._

Before he can recover, Shogo is sent right back to the ground as Gat headbutts him, breaking Akuji's nose. A fork of lightning steaks the sky and the following thunderclap is almost instantaneous.

"Get up," repeats Johnny.

It takes Shogo a few moments to regain his feet with the crippled limb. He throws a weak haymaker that Johnny doesn't even feel, before collapsing back against a grave under the return blows.

"Get up."

"Please…stop," the coward gasps, clutching the grave marker for support.

"Not so fun when you're fighting someone who isn't tied to a chair, is it?"

"I didn't kill her!"

"You ordered it," replies Gat, still deathly calm. The pouring rain lashes at us as the wind rises, muting the world and narrowing it to a small patch of graveyard suspended in a maestorm. When it becomes clear the Ronin's leader won't stand and face him again, Johnny lashes out with such force that the headstone Shogo is clutching crumbles as his head encounters it.

"…I'm…sorry," he sobs weakly, struggling in the mud.

"Well, that brings her back, doesn't it," Gat replies, anger audibly lacing his tone for the first time. He grabs the bastard's neck and begins hauling him across the ground.

"You couldn't even let her have a burial, you fucking piece of shit."

He stops by an open grave with an unlowered coffin – another ceremony disrupted by our gunfight, most likely. Tipping the casket over sideways, he spills the occupant – not Aisha, who's already in the ground, but some middle-aged redhead – out. Shogo stares at the corpse in horror, while I smile grimly.

"Please…" Shogo's voice breaks, his speech slurring.

 _Fuck you._

I dislodge a pair of spades from the pile of earth by me.

"No, please, no," he continues, begging.

Johnny doesn't waste his breath, just tosses the cowardly motherfucker into the now vacated coffin, slamming the lid shut. I toss a shovel my friend, which he catches as he kicks the descender mechanism. The casket begins sinking into its prepared pit, gears emitting a rapid clicking that is audible even over the rainstorm. Another peal of thunder rolls across us.

"Kill me, but don't do this!" Shogo's distorted voice pleads. "Just kill me damn it!"

Soon his entreaties devolve into incoherent screaming as he pounds futilely against the lid.

I simply watch the box descend with satisfaction. Johnny is scooping earth before it even comes to rest. After a moment I join him, and soon Shogo's cries are muffled.

After a while they can't be heard at all.

/\

_ ( ) _

( '==' )

'\/'

The thunderstorm has passed and the rain dwindled to nothing, even though the sky remains dark and gloomy as we slip towards evening. I'm lying on the hood of my car - now parked in the empty and undeveloped fields at the southwest end of Tidal Springs - twirling an empty bottle in my hands. Johnny is sitting in the grass, leaning back against the bumper, working on his latest beer. The only sounds are the distant rumble of traffic from the highway, and the lap of water on the bank below us.

I've been watching my breath mist in front of the clouds drifting by overhead, and letting my thoughts wander. My itch is gone - the glorious massacre we just took part in saw to that - which leaves nothing but aching as the finality of Aisha's death sinks in. I'd probably be a sobbing mess if it weren't for the alcohol swirling through my system, muting everything to a tolerable level.

 _I'm missing her horribly already._

It hurts, badly, in a way no amount of drink could ever fully mask. Aisha was my only friend besides Johnny for a while, and the only one besides him still around when I woke up from my coma. She and Lin were-

 _NO, I am NOT going to start thinking about Lin, I'm already half a wreck, and if I...AISHA. Think about Aisha. Everything she's ever done for you. How amazing she was. Her 'unimpressed-with-your-bullshit' look. Anything._

Aisha helped bring me out of the shell I'd crawled into in my youth. Got me to talk, laugh, dare to dream of more than being a nobody.

 _Fuck, I'm crying again._

I throw my empty bottle away, hearing it clatter down the hillside before shattering on a rock.

"Another, Johnny," my voice is rough, thick with the effort of staying level. It's the first thing either of us has said since the graveyard.

If Johnny notices the waver, he doesn't comment on it, just silently passes me a drink from the crate beside him. This is my fifth, he's one ahead of me, and it'll never be enough.

 _Because Aisha's DEAD, she's GONE, and NEVER COMING BACK-_

I open the vessel hastily and tilt it into my mouth, gulping until I sputter and cough as fluid goes down the wrong pipe. But the burning in my lungs is a welcome distraction from the more nebulous pain that keeps curling through my chest.

"Eesh'd kick my ass for moping over this," Gat speaks up suddenly.

 _That's probably true. Aisha had zero tolerance for pity parties and despair. But even so…_

"I remember when…when you were off meetin' with Hughes," Johnny says, derailing my train of thought, and I feel a painful clench in my gut.

"I was at her place, exhausted, just watchin' TV, and waiting for you to get back...I heard the explosion, and I just knew. I knew even before the broadcasts started comin' in that it had been the boat, and that you were dead."

I can't say anything to this, so I push my fist gently into his shoulder.

 _I would have thought the same, in your position._

"I'm not sentimental, Boss, but you an' me...we clicked, ya know? Different than Eesh and I did, but...the same sorta deep. And when I thought I'd lost you - one of the few Saints who put up with my shit because they liked me, rather than what I could do for the gang - I didn't know what to do. I was just sitting there, numb, an' Eesh comes in, figures out what I'm thinkin' in an instant - and just hauls back and smacks me across the face."

I snort a painful half-laugh, unable to properly articulate my feelings - there's a lump in my throat that makes it impossible to speak. But it's easy to imagine the expression that would have been on Aisha's face at that moment. I can imagine the hit too. Been on the receiving end myself, more than once.

"She just looks at me like I'm the biggest idiot in the world and tells me 'don't jump to conclusions, Johnny. Until you know for sure, anything's possible, even miracles.'"

He takes a deep breath.

"And I remember being so surprised to think that somethin' else might be possible, that it might somehow be okay, I just fell right asleep. The next morning, she's shaking me awake for a report about you being found unconscious downriver."

"My coma must've setback your optimism," I try to joke.

He waves it away.

"Boss, once I knew you were alive, it was only a matter of waiting. Me an' you - anything trying to kill us has to do it right in one go, or we'll come back for revenge. Five years is a stretch, but you always were a bit slow on the uptake."

I actually manage to smile this time.

"Condescending asshole," I say, giving him a solid hit.

"Scarfaced bitch," he rejoins, smacking my knee with his beer bottle. The leg twitches. "Point is, Aisha always found a reason to keep going. If I can't keep that alive, I'd be the complete prick I was before I met her. And I'm damn well not going to lose anything she gave me."

It seems my friend is stronger than I thought. Certainly stronger than I feel in this moment. The lump in my throat is back, but I force words out as sit up and lift my bottle.

"To Aisha and the things she gave us."

Johnny raises his own to the toast and we both drink slowly.

 _And she gave so much. Music, laughter, friendship…bruises…_

"You know what she did to me after you got shot in the leg?" I ask as the memory spring to mind.

Gat cocks his head, features settling into guarded curiosity.

"No…"

 _Wait, really? I'll never forget-_

"She punched me in the boobs!"

Johnny stares at me for a long moment, then turns away. He's remarkably still, apart from a sleight vibration in his shoulders, and a moment later I realize he's laughing. My face flushes with irritation.

"It's not funny!"

He turns back to me with a blank expression.

"Of course not, Boss."

I glower at him. My friend waits a moment before speaking again.

"…Which one?"

 _Twitch._

"Both of them!"

Johnny manages one further second of composure before he falls back braying with mirth.

"That's my Eesh!"

 _Johnny, I am going to punch you so hard…_

"Shut it!" I growl. "The bruises lasted for two weeks! Do you have any _idea_ how painful that makes jostling under recoil?"

"Can't say I do, no."

"Well it fucking sucks! And if you'd like to have some first-hand experience I'll set you up right now, see how you like – stop laughing you dick! _It's not funny!_ "

He doesn't stop though, just keeps chortling until he tips over and rolls in the grass in front of the bumper. Part of me still wants to deck him, but it's fighting a losing battle. Finally, I sigh in capitulation and smile reluctantly.

"Okay…maybe a little bit. At least she apologized for jumping to conclusions after. But man, Johnny, I never guessed your girlfriend had such a temper before that moment."

Johnny pushes himself back to his feet and retrieves his drink.

"How do you think she kept me in line? I know I'm not the easiest to get along with, you think the average doe-eyed empty-headed pop star could handle the Gat? Eesh was velvet wrapped around a bar of fucking steel."

 _I'll drink to that._

"That's why I liked her right off," I muse through the warm buzz as the alcohol descends. "Aisha wasn't scared by me one bit. I mean, bruises aside, I admired the hell outta her for coming at me like that. Didn't matter that I had over a foot on her, she would'a fucked me up six ways to Sunday for getting you hurt. I could see why you loved her. Confirmed my opinion of the both of you."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. She was an angel with a mean streak and you were a violent ass, but both my kinda people."

"Stop talkin' soft, Boss, you'll make me blush."

"Up yours dickhead, I'll say what I want, and you were both adorable."

I take a long gulp.

"Seriously though, Johnny...most of my best memories are with you two. It's gonna keep tearing me up that she's gone, but I'm hella glad to have known her."

He nods slowly.

"Mine too. Any good I did was for her, and that…wasn't often. I was a hell of a trial most of the time. I didn't deserve her."

 _WRONG, Johnny you idiot! You- ahg-_

I take a moment looking out over the grey water to get my next words straight. This is too important to mangle.

"Don't you _dare_ say that," I finally settle on. "You made her happy."

He goes still, and then lowers his head.

"I got her killed," he says quietly.

"Bullshit," I growl. "The Ronin murdered her because they're scum, and don't you dare tell me after what you've just said that if I was talking to Aisha now, she'd blame herself for your death. She'd be grateful for the time she knew you, torn to pieces that you'd be gone, and cursing the fuckers actually responsible."

His lips quirk.

"She did have an inventive mind for swearing."

"That she did. Quite a voice, too. Angelic in the recording booth, and a devil outside of it."

Again, I've exhausted my drink, as has Johnny. Two empty bottles sail away into the darkness.

"But Johnny, seriously-" I return to the main point, waiting until he's giving me his full attention. " _You made her happy_. How she died doesn't change that. She said as much a week before I got on that stupid boat. 'Sure the selfish ass has some problems, but he makes me smile, and I've never find someone better.' Her exact words."

Johnny's eyes are inscrutable behind their mirrored shades, but his motionlessness speaks volumes.

"And then when I got you outta court after I woke up," I press on, "I could see how she still looked at you. She loved you, Johnny, for real and ever."

He looks away, but the unbearable tenseness is melting from his posture.

"Damn it Eesh," he finally says, standing up to pace away and look out over the water.

I go back to cloud watching, and several minutes drift past. Eventually, Johnny returns and secures a new beer, tossing another to me. It smacks in my hand pleasantly and I twist it open, while Johnny hooks his in the hubcaps.

"I had some really good times with her," he says slowly, sitting down by me. "Boss, some of the dates we went on - especially while she was still singing for KCR, and we had to go out in disguise - were some real Benny Hill type shit."

He smiles, gaze fastening on something I can't see.

"I've got a picture of us both in those ridiculous spy nose-glasses somewhere. Once we had to steal a cement truck to get home after my car broke down. And one time we almost got rumbled by paparazzos and had to escape out the bathroom window of some high-class restaurant downtown."

"Since when would you have taken Aisha anywhere besides Freckle Bitches?" I state in disbelief. "And not shooting at assholes with cameras? C'mon Johnny, I know you."

"I can maintain a low profile when I need to!" he replies indignantly. "Shooting woulda drawn too much attention - though I was hella tempted. And I can serve up a high-class date on occasion; the Gat is a far better player than you ever were, playa."

I shake my head in exasperation.

"You gotta go fancy once in a while or you'll forget how good the simple things are," Johnny says. "'Sides, Eesh made any outing fun."

I can't deal with the image of Johnny Gat stuffed into a tux like an indignant penguin, nose in the air and laying into some poor French waiter because his lobster was overcooked, and burst out laughing.

"Aisha did have that way about her," I agree, when I can control myself again. "She taught me how to paint my nails."

Apparently, I've managed to surprise my best friend this time.

"Didn't think you were into the girly stuff. Beyond the fashion mags, at any rate."

I shrug.

"Into, not into, forgot, kept from…people should do what they like. Never went out of my way before – but Aisha made it appealing, you know? Something about that…desire for you to enjoy yourself. She had it so clear it burned sometimes."

"…yeah…she did," Johnny says fondly.

"And I guess…I guess she saw that part of me had wanted to but never considered I could. So she swooped in and showed me how. And it was always like that."

We each drink deeply.

"I've been thinking…" I say after a moment, "I'd like to cut my hair. Short."

"For real boss? It's long since…forever. Since I met you anyway."

"I know, but I think I'm finally over the impulse that kept it that way. Would you mind if…well…I was planning on getting it cut to match Aisha's, so we could look like sisters, was my original thought. Even though she's….gone, I'd still like to follow through with that. But only if you're cool."

He brushes off my concern.

"Go ahead Boss, I know Eesh'd appreciate it…but," and his lips snake into that damn half-grin I know so well, "you'll never look half a good as she did, no matter what you do to your hair."

That draws a belly laugh from me.

"I'm not expecting to, I just…feel like a change. Plus, if I dye the tips pink, I can be your long-lost twin instead, Mr. Frosted-Tips."

"Whatever floats your boat, Boss. Just don't come crying to me when no one wants to sleep with that ugly mug because you got rid of your one attractive feature."

 _Eeh, whatever. My face is mine, and I'm not trading it. My lieutenants can be the pretty ones._

"I don't need timid amateurs who're thrown off by a few scars. Fucking should be like racing – find someone experienced, with good control and endurance."

Gat snorts and shakes his head.

"If that's your idea of romance, you'll never get laid. At least slow your driving if you're tryin' to seal the deal. Eesh was practically traumatized the one time you took us to dinner. Dates want a scenic cruise, not to scream all the way to the movies. And _don't_ get me started on your flying. That helicopter trip you took me on would be good grounds for divorce."

"Sorry Johnny, it was my first time in one of those. I'd've stayed lower if I knew you were afraid of heights."

"I'm not afraid of heights, you just can't fly straight!" he retorts. "You had us banked at thirty degrees the whole way to the crib! And what do you mean it was your first time?"

"Well, I'd never flown a helicopter before."

"And here I was hoping you just meant that _model_. So you decided the best time to learn was _while under fire and getting my wounded ass outta the hospital!?_ "

"It's not like I had no idea what I was doing," I reply archly. "I read a manual once."

"Oh there, see, that makes me feel a lot better."

"…Really?"

"Fuck no! You crazy motherfucker!"

"Got us home, didn't I?"

He mutters obscenities for several seconds before finishing off his latest drink.

"I'm surprised you didn't take your chopper to scope that Samedi apartment," he finally grumbles. "Way I hear it, you've spent the last week in that thing."

 _True. Flying is damn fun, and it's helped keep my mind busy. Still-_

"I would've, but I couldn't."

"Why not?" asks Johnny.

"I crashed it."

Silence.

"You crashed it?"

"Yep."

"…Fucking unbelievable, Boss."

"I'm thinking the next one should have more guns than that sluggish medical transport, anyway. You wanna help me break into the National Guard airbase?"

"And fly out with you? No chance in hell. You're the best wingman I could ask for, in every sense besides the literal ones, but I'm not getting near another vehicle you're controlling for at least a year."

 _Heh._

"Love you too, Johnny."

I take a slow pull of my drink and sigh. It's weird how you can be so happy and so sad at the same time. Some things end, some things go on. Life. What a clusterfuck.

Deep breaths.

 _Aisha's gone._

Neither Johnny nor I can change that.

We've killed two of the three responsible for her death, which isn't nothing.

 _And we've still got each other, which isn't nothing either._

/\

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 **Next time: Harry Potter remembers the past, and encounters the present.**


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